The Pep Rally

I am fairly certain I will never understand school spirit. My high school class, clustered together by chance, was supposed to understand a special sense of unity, an ethos of history.

I never learned the alma mater, and I thought the gym smelled bad.

Inevitably, I would feel myself becoming embarrassingly jealous of the cheerleaders and their mini skirts, their starring role in the assembly. I would comment on the offensiveness of our Indian mascot--but no one wants to be PC when you've got a school sanctioned reason to skip fifth period. So I crossed my arms, played with the pins on my backpack, and tried to look bored.

But the clapping and stomping portion of the rally was most unfortunate for me. Awkward and a bit shy, I felt as though the entire gymnasium was really secretly there to catch a glimpse of the hopelessly arrhythmic. I would half-heartedly try to clap along if my friends were moved to participate (conscientious objection can only go so far). But I never knew when to clap, and if I did manage to catch the beat, it was the off-beat, and my miracle of clapping coordination would happen just as the crowd quieted. It was a cruel talent of the school spirited—knowing when the crowd should hush for a few words from the coach. Hopelessly unaware, mine were the last set of hands, clap-clap, clapclapclap, clapping when the speech had started.

Ten years past high school, I had nearly forgotten this particular set of anxieties. Then last Friday, I walked into Antioch Baptist Church for what I thought would be an informational meeting about the Obama campaign. I walked alone, into the church (the sort of place that normally sets my nerves on edge anyway)—and found the sanctuary packed with a shouting, clapping, sign-waving crowd. Up front, where the cheerleaders ought to be, there was a smartly dressed city councilwoman, a county commissioner, a rabbi and a minister. I put on my Obama pin and allowed myself to be ushered into one of the empty seats in the balcony.

I ended up squeezing between a middle aged man and a bus driver in her thirties. As the first speaker took her spot at the lectern (and was simulcast onto the jumbotron screen behind it), I started to get excited. Ohio mattered in this election. Our poverty, our housing crisis and our unemployment was going to get national attention. My vote for Barack Obama was going to be part of a movement—my vote could change the course of history.

At first, I stood with the rest of the crowd out of politeness. I clapped a bit when moved to, but I understood quickly that there was no wrong time to clap. People were seemingly afflicted with unprovoked outbursts of clapping, shouting. I mumbled a few “Yes, WE CAN’s” when the room really got noisy, but I mostly kept quiet. I was raised Methodist, after all.

Finally, the church’s minister took the pulpit. He held up an old document wrapped in a plastic sleeve and started to tell a story. Soon, I understood what makes people yell amen.

The document was his great uncle’s death certificate. On November 4, 1930, his uncle was shot and killed in Kentucky, on his way to vote. He just wanted to vote.

Now, his great nephew, a minister from Cleveland, was going to serve as a delegate at the Democratic convention—and cast a vote for the man who could be our first black president.

That’s when the magnitude of this election really hit me. I’ve heard the fact that Barack Obama might be our first black president so many times that it barely fazes me. He could be lime green, and although I might be bit alarmed by that hue, I’d still vote for him. But just eighty years ago, some white people were so threatened by the idea of black voters that they would kill. Just eighty years ago, there were people who valued voting so dearly that they died trying.

In that noisy Baptist church, I still may not have found God, but I found a faith in America that I’d never before understood. The pledge of allegiance was something you did because your teacher asked you to; people stand for the national anthem because it’s rude to sit. The declaration of independence, those self-evident truths—these were just the words of wise but distant characters. Patriotism always struck me as a farce.

I suppose that I have never felt involved in the course of American history. I would do the pledge and stand at attention with the same forced spirit I felt at meaningless rituals like high school pep rallies. But now, I recognize that a single vote does matter, that the spirit of an age can change lives.

My vote in the coming week will be significant—not because Ohio is now valuable primary territory, but because the heartfelt decisions of individuals do matter. This country was founded upon certain principles—and though the founding generation failed to grant it at the time—we are bound together in protection of these principles. The last seven years nearly convinced me that my life is small, that the popular vote is secondary, that the constitution can be ignored when convenient, that Americans are small, scared people.

In all the talk about hope, Obama is slowly reminding us that we are no different from the rest of the world. That even in America, people can come together to solve problems, to ensure a better world for all of our children.

Today, I will attend my fourth rally in little over a week. It’s strange, but I think I am starting to understand why people go to church each week. There is something nourishing about this process. It is healing to hear a room full of people stand and cheer about closing Guantanamo, restoring habeas corpus, and knowing that a country’s greatness is not a measure of its leader. It is measured in the actions of everyday people—those who manage to demand more than manipulation, fear, and the lowest common intellectual denominator. For this, I jump to my feet, clap my hands, yell, and cry a little. For me, these are rallies for natural rights and human potential, and for that, I cannot sit back quietly any longer.